More on High-Speed Access (Or Lack of it) in U.S. Schools

In October of 2017, I wrote about the Education Superhighway’s “2017 State of the States” report in which it was reported that an estimated 6.5 million students, most of whom are in the nation’s 1,587 rural K-12 schools, are currently without access to high-speed Internet. The problem is that the schools that don’t have the infrastructure necessary to provide this high-speed access. The federal E-rate, program was created to help school districts attain better access to the Internet.

According to the Education Superhighway, this federal help isn’t getting to these districts in a timely manner due to excessive scrutiny, inconsistency in the application of rules, and a lack of clarity on process changes. They blame the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees E-rate program administrator Universal Service Administration Company (USAC).

The problems are so extensive that they have created a new website to list and keep track of the districts that are being affected by these delays and denials. On that site, they contend the FCC could accelerate approval of these broadband projects by directing the USAC “to eliminate the red tape in the E-rate application process.”

According to the site, 38 fiber optics projects in 17 states have been awaiting decisions since last year. In addition, the group says 61 projects in 28 states have been “unfairly denied.”

It is hard for me to understand why more people do not consider this a high priority. Visit the website, delaysanddenials.org, for more details and suggestions about what you can do to speed up this process.

Healthy Facilities

Included in this issue is a special section containing the winners of our second annual Healthy Facilities Awards. This awards program was created in partnership with the Healthy Facilities Institute (HFI). It is designed to acknowledge the thousands of caring individuals who work in the nation’s public and private schools and colleges, creating and maintaining healthy environments for the students and staff. You will find details about the award recipients starting on page 29. We also plan to present some highlights from the winning entries during a webinar on May 2 entitled Cleaning Essentials: Tools Needed to Make a Healthy Change. You can register for that on our website, webSPM.com.

This article originally appeared in the School Planning & Management April 2018 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Greenheck Debuts New Energy Recovery Ventilator

    Greenheck recently released a new energy recovery ventilator, the ERVi, designed for small indoor spaces like basements and mechanical rooms, according to a news release. The hardware can fit through a 30-inch door and be mounted on the ceiling for retrofit and decarbonization projects.

  • Texas School District Opens New Elementary School

    The Boerne Independent School District (Boerne ISD) near San Antonio, Texas, recently opened a new elementary school that serves almost 500 students, according to a news release. The district partnered with Pfluger Architects to build the 97,151-square-foot Viola Wilson Elementary School, which opened in August.

  • Minnesota High School Completes $226M Addition, Renovation Project

    White Bear Lake Area High School – North Campus in White Bear Lake, Minn., recently announced the completion of a $226-million renovation and addition project, according to a news release. The district partnered with Kraus-Anderson for the project’s construction, which involved creating a single high-school site for the White Bear Lake Area School District.

  • New Jersey High School Debuts Auditorium Renovation, Technical Upgrades

    Plainfield High School in Plainfield, N.J., recently completed a series of construction projects including an auditorium renovation, a new eSports gaming arena, and a black-box theater, according to a news release. The school partnered with PureTek Group to install the Pliant Technologies CrewCom professional wireless intercom system.

Digital Edition